Post-Modern Uncertainty and Human Consciousness
How the Brain Constructs Rather Than Perceives Reality
"Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality" --Anil Seth TED Talk
Watch "The Mind Explained: Memory" on Netflix for a good summary of the following:
Quick NIL summary intro
"Can we implant false
memories?"
** Nice BBC news summary of hot air balloon expirement ("False Memories" BBC Tomorrow's World) Full 30 minute episode.
Loftus TED talk (in depth and a bit long and boring (17 minutes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB2OegI6wvI
Scientific American Alan Alda picnic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lisNg91_M0
The Cultural Self
Postmodern philosophies
imply that the Modernist conception of the independent "self" is in fact
partially a myth: there is no break between this
thing I call my "self" and my cultural influences (Locke's
"experience" writ large); I am as linked to my culture,
my tribe or pack or
"colony" as any other human or wolf or ant.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it returns humans to their more
traditional social sphere,
balancing the solipsistic, Modern, Jeffersonian “right to happiness” with more socially defined and socially integrated
perspectives on what it means to be a "person" or individual; from a PM
perspective, humans see themselves as inextricably linked to one another:
there is no or at least less difference between the self and Other, the individual and his/her
culture.
From a moral perspective these theories may imply a certain social responsibility -- a responsibility for each individual to care for others. Grasping that our minds are made up of socially constructed Ideologies does not necessarily "free" us from our dependence on those Ideologies, for the simple reason that we are as dependent on others as any previous society or, more to the point, any other social organism.
Finally, just because ideas are
socially constructed does not imply that they are not useful,
beautiful, or even necessary. For example, understanding that a Romantic love for nature is simply
"Ideology" more than "spiritual truth" simply changes the way I experience
nature, rather than somehow ruining it; in fact, for me personally,
seeing Romanticism as Ideology has "freed" me to expand my appreciation
for environments like Rome or NYC instead of limiting this love to places like
Bonners Ferry or Yosemite, and it freed me from seeing loggers as bad guys
somehow "ruining" nature (although I am also still free to think rationally
about whether there are "better" and "worse" approaches to how we treat our
physical environment; I don't have to think washing my hands after blow my
nose is moral or immoral to think that washing them is a good idea).